Gov.’s Criminal Justice Reform Commission Issues Preliminary Report

One of the ideas could be controversial, such as reducing the charge for possession of less than an ounce of cocaine from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The Kentucky Criminal Justice Council debated the proposals Monday, rejected a few and agreed to hand Beshear its final report Dec. 1. Beshear will use the report as he drafts his criminal-justice legislative package for the 2009 General Assembly.

■ Reduce the criminal charge for possession of small amounts of illegal drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor.

■ Rewrite the law regarding drug trafficking within 1,000 yards of a school — a serious crime — so that it applies only to dealers trying to sell drugs to students, not to dealers with adult customers who happen to be in the general vicinity of a campus.

■ Establish different levels of drug trafficking based on the quantity sold, with lesser penalties for low-level sales.

■ Expand the use of home incarceration and electronic monitoring.

■ Provide substance-abuse, education and job-training programs in all county jails that hold state inmates, and create re-entry programs that ease newly released felons back into society from jail or prison.

■ Set a statute of limitations on less-serious felonies so they cannot be prosecuted after five to 10 years. Kentucky is one of a few states with no statute of limitations on felonies.

■ Raise the felony theft level to $500 from $300, where it has been for many years.

■ Offer more medical and geriatric parole to ailing and older inmates, who are expensive to care for and no longer pose a threat to public safety.

■ Reduce various aspects of the persistent-felony offender statute, which requires longer sentences for criminals repeatedly convicted of felonies